Meher Marfatia: Tiger eyes and timeless tombs

Some columns are slow starters. Others begin with a bang, then peak or plateau. This one, initially ho-hum, had me dismayed. Even loyal residents of the north-east precinct of Mumbai which was one of 1720s' Bombay's eight villages, said, "Why Wadala? It only has good schools." Wadala could appear a bit barren. Yet, scratch the prosaic mosaic of bus terminus, staff quarters and crumbling barracks, wind up Antop Hill and the landscape leavens to charismatic cemetery and tomb spaces suffused with love and light.

The Shaikh Misri Dargah at Wadala

At his flat in the 1956-built Sahakar Niketan colony, former Voice of Wadala editor Sharad Kumar shows me a Citizens' Forum map fixing perspective and texturing the turf. He points out zones for mills and markets, Port Trust employees' stone houses (liquid fuel and oil depots were installed early as BPT projects), and the East Indian hubs of Rangari Chawl, Gowari village and Wadala village. I explore the last with Michelle Britto who lives in nearby Catholic Colony, studded with buildings named Ave and Madonna. She and Kumar Srivatsa from an adjacent street guide me to Shivji Punja Chawl. Just off Road No. 10, this pair of low-slung structures was constructed in the 1940s for Kutchi Lohanas.

Producing a sepia print, Kumar explains, "This is the path from the level crossing to Wadala station, with two leftward Harbour Line tracks and Port Trust rail lines on the right. The Frontier Mail, flagging off on this line in 1928, ran from Ballard Pier to Peshawar. More for moustachioed military men then, as kids we referred to it the Grandpapa Train!"

Kazim Ahmedji and Shakeb Ahmedji washing a stone at the Shaykh Misri Dargah they believe to be 500 years old and indicative of the era in which this saint came here. Pics/Falguni Agrawal

Currently editing the Mumbai Meri Jaan monthly for non-profit AGNI ( Action for Good Governance and Networking in India), Kumar is joined by his young neighbour Jay Jesrani. In a study strewn with memorabilia, I glean Wadala vignettes from both. Jesrani lists over a dozen schools which, interestingly, include those managed by trusts of all four South Indian states. In close proximity are also 100-year-old St Joseph's, Auxilium Convent and Sitaram Prakash High School erected in 1949 by Ramchand Kewalramani on a government-allotted marshy plot.

Trees planted in Raja Bhimdev's 13th-century rule lent localities names. Parel derived from the paral (trumpet flower), Wadala from wad (banyan). I prefer the colourful claim that a tiger roamed the area, eyes glowing and a fierce flick of his tail sweeping the ground he prowled down to from the hill. In Marathi "wagh dola", tiger eyes, became Wadala. This folksier version is given by Kazim Ahmedji, from the Sunni family of mujawwar (caretakers whose ancestors worked in the service of saints) at Shaykh Misri Dargah. The terrace tomb of trader-turned-preacher Shaykh Misri is within a bricked wall enclosure.

The taraazu in the centre of the courtyard of Shaykh Misri Dargah is often weighed down with sweet offerings in thanks from devotees whose wishes are granted

To quote Nile Green in Bombay Islam: "Stories of sea journeys in previous centuries related for Bombay's saints form myths that provided the comfort of vicarious roots and past parallels for Muslim migrants who listened to them. Shaykh Misri is believed to have come from Egypt around the 15th century... though as with many city shrines, by the nineteenth century, the dargah of Shaykh Misri was maintained by a more local Konkani family."

A straightforward attribution links the saint with Egypt, the land alluded to as Misr in Arabic and Persian. Another legend has it that, to allow the poor to augment their income, he miraculously converted the salt layering the landscape, to misri, or khadisakhar - sugar.

An immense weighing scale hangs in the heart of a square courtyard shaded by tamarind, soapnut and gulmohur trees. This taraazu is heaped with offerings of thanks by women who conceive against all odds or the unemployed who get jobs. Volume III of the Gazetteer of Bombay notes: "The tomb in the chamber lies beneath an aureate wooden canopy from which descend a chandelier and lamps of various sizes presented by those whose vows have borne fruit."

An archival photograph of Ibrahim Janmohammed Patel, grandfather of Rais Patel, fourth generation descendant of the mujawwar family, showing Ibrahim sipping chai outside Barkat Ali Dargah on Antop Hill. Pic Courtesy/Waheeda Patel

"Dil se mango, yahaan sukoon milta hai - ask with faith, receive what you seek here," declares Kazim's brother Shakeb. "Floods or riots, this is a safe haven." The Ahmedjis say that in 1941-42, their grandfather Ghulam Mohiuddin's time, the dargah faced a legal case demanding proof of its establishment. His daughter Najma narrates how her father was urged to search for evidence by a divine visitation. "Beneath bushes around the creek, 100 metres from the dargah, a stone was discovered," she recalls. This providential find, said to be inscribed with the words "Hazrat Shaikh Misri", apparently convinced the judge.

A 10-minute walk from this half-millennium-old tomb is Barkat Ali Dargah cresting the hill. The resting place of Barkat Ali Baba, who travelled from Uttar Pradesh over 200 years ago to propagate the faith, is tended to by fourth generation Memon mujawwar Rais Abu Bakr Patel. Warmly led in by his wife Waheeda and mother Rukaiya, I learn that the 17th of every lunar month is a special day on which the fragrance of lobaan wafts wide, to commemorate the day Barkat Ali Baba expired.

In the 1940s-built Kutchi Lohana chawl, neighbours are close family to each other

Descending from the slope the dargah is perched on, it's back to circling the khadi (pond) behind BPT officers' bungalows where bullocks were bathed before trundling off to pull carts piled with salt from pans ringing Wadala. These were notorious environs where thieves boldly ruptured salt sacks with swords. During the Civil Disobedience Movement, Congress volunteers raided the Wadala Salt Works in June 1930. The city helped Gandhiji "twist the lion's tail and literally apply salt to it'', to quote K Gopalaswami in Gandhi and Bombay. Ladies forbidden from marching to Dandi, the Captain sisters and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay made salt on Chowpatty beach and Wadala's white saline stretches.

Innumerable women rolling chapatis and papads continue to be empowered at Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad's hub on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road. Metres away on Major Parmeshwaran Road are Aditya Jyot eye hospital and SIWS College, behind which Ackworth Leprosy Hospital opened doors to victims of delayed diagnosis and societal shunning in 1890. Its wards were set up in the vacated Matunga Artillery Centre after the Governor shifted residence from Parel to Malabar Hill in 1885. Once a 500-bed facility, Ackworth now headquarters the AIDS Control Society.

Voice of Wadala editor Sharad Kumar's family and friends on a picnic to Pir Pau port in a St Joseph's School bus, circa 1947-48. Pic Courtesy/Sharad Kumar

In Wadala bazaar, Karim Sattar Memon has hawked onions and potatoes at Azad Kanda Batata Mart since he was a boy of 12. The 55-year-old's regular clientele of Maharashtrians, Parsis and Gujaratis swear by the quality of his stock. Sculptor Arzan Khambatta also has an amusing memory. "Wadala bazaar touches Dadar Parsi Colony where I grew up. My mother would send me there to buy fish and vegetables. One day, I cycled off with an order of 'bhaji' from her. I wondered why the vendor kept asking 'Which bhaji?' when I thought it was simply spinach. She saw me look all puzzled and scruffy - I went wearing casual home clothes - and, mistaking me for my mum's house help, demanded, 'Is your sethani Parsi or Maharashtrian?' Because Parsis stir methi bhaji into dhansaak dal, while more Maharashtrians choose palak!"

On quieter soil is the Baha'i Gulistan cemetery from 1905 on Antop Hill. It is so christened by the community to celebrate death - writings prescribe their cemetery looks like a gulistan, garden of roses. Graves of the adjoining Armenian cemetery marked with carved crosses use motifs symbolizing renewal. With a solitary Armenian left in the city - actor Tulip Joshi's mother Zabel - Baha'i followers share theirs. Beside Gulistan, the 18th-century Chinese cemetery is divided in two parts. The dead are buried in one section and, as traditional Chinese rites go, graves are dug up after five years (at night by lamplight, avoiding the effect of the sun) and the bodies exhumed. The remains are placed in an urn buried in an opposite part of cemetery.

Past Wadala Church and the Ram and Hanuman temples is the 400-year-old sacred spot of Vitthal Mandir. Worshipping at this replica of the famed Vitthal Mandir in Pandharpur is considered next best to a pilgrimage to Pandharpur itself. Devotees meditate at the sanctum sanctorum on an afternoon hot enough to urgently request Lord Vithoba the favour of cooler climes.

Like thousands of taxi drivers and chaatwalas, Atmaram Dubey from Jaunpur in UP, has sold paan and sweets for 40 years, first under a roadside peepul on a shaded pathway. He regrets the decline of civility in the city: "Pehle log badi tameez se baat karte the, but there is no respect left for anyone, no manners, nothing. I am sad. What has Bombay sunk to?"

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. You can reach her at ehermarfatia@gmail.com